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The measure failed 4-2 in the Assembly Public Safety Committee on straight party lines, with four Democrats voting it down and two Republicans supporting it.

Immediately after the vote, Assemblyman Mike Morrell, of Rancho Cucamonga, told KCRA 3: "Republicans are for protecting over our children and our families. And it's obvious by the vote today, the Democrats prefer to protect the sex offenders."

Said the Assembly's top Democrat, Speaker John Perez: "I think it's an unfortunate characterization by the author. And I think when you lose a bill, you get frustrated, as opposed to having the discussion."

Morrell said his bill was intended to address some of the problems associated with Gov. Jerry Brown's prison realignment plan, in which parole violators are not returned to prison, but rather sent to their local county jail.

Just last month, a Stockton parolee pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender, and was then released from the San Joaquin County Jail because of overcrowding.

He is now back in custody and will appear in court March 26 for further proceedings.

After Morrell's measure went down to defeat, public safety advocate Lynne Brown told KCRA 3: "It affects public safety in a negative way. Having no consequence for not following the rules is something that sex offenders figure out very quickly."

Brown, with Advocates for Public Safety, added, "When they're arrested for a parole violation and released immediately or within hours from jail due to overcrowding, they learn the consequences for violating don't exist anymore."

But civil liberties advocates strongly disagreed.

"The ACLU would contend that our state (prisons) are still grossly overcrowded, and are substantially impacting the quality of medical and mental health care in state prisons," said Kim Horiuchi, of the American Civil Liberties Union.

California prisons are under federal mandate to reduce the state inmate population because of concerns that current conditions are unconstitutional.

Democrats on the Assembly's Public Safety Committee expressed concerns with Morrell's approach.

"Even though this is a very well-intended bill, I am not going to recommend an aye vote," said committee chair Tom Ammiano, a San Francisco assemblyman. "You have identified a problem, there's no doubt about that. But I'm going to disagree with you on the solution."

Perez conceded that California's prison realignment plan was not perfect.

"To the extent there is a problem -- and there really is a problem there -- hopefully, we're able to work together to address the problem, even if that bill wasn't something that could be supported by the committee," he said.

"But there are some problems that have come to the fore as well," he said. "And our job as the legislature is to work with the governor to fix the problems that we've uncovered, and make sure that our system works."

Public safety advocate Brown promised to pursue a ballot initiative to address the issue of sex offenders failing to register.

"One victim is too many," Brown told KCRA 3. "The grandmother in Stockton is one too many. We don't have to have a body count to know that is wrong."